In Darkness Bind Them
by Elfsheen
Summary: Eomer and Eowyn keep a family secret that could destroy the House of Eorl, and Grima knows ... Eomer/Eowyn/Grima/Theoden. Takes place during the War of the Ring and a little before.
1. Prologue: The End

**In Darkness Bind Them**   
  
  
  
Prologue: The End   
  
  
  
A/N: Somewhat AU-ish, but not too much. The prologue documents the "end" of the story and future chapters will explain the intracacies of Éomer and Éowyn's relationship, examine Gríma's motivations, and the moral decay of the House of Eorl, amidst the War of the Ring.   
  
  
  
Disclaimer: JRR Tolkien and New Line Cinema own everything.   
  
  
  
Crucified in the mud of the graves of a thousand men with a Haradrim halberd, Éowyn lay dying on the Pelennor fields. The wrathful dawn was petrified in her wild eyes, causing tears to crawl in shame behind her helm. 'Éomer …,' a rasping whisper choked on blood pooling in her throat. Breathing taxed her surviving strength and she did not move. Nearby she could hear him recalling the names of the dead. His voice trembled though his cold fury was as foundations of stone. 

'Guthláf …' Grey eyes narrowed as they were pinched by knitted brows. Beside his king and the broken body of the banner-bearer lay Meriadoc Brandybuck; the Holybytla from the North country. His diminutive form was pin-cushioned with Enemy shafts, the killing blow struck through his skull. And perhaps it had been a mercy. 'Master Merry …' 

'Éomer.' 

Above the noise of the thundering _mûmakil_ and the screams of friend and foe, calling to rally for the assault the whisper of his name drew him to her. Suddenly he beheld his sister as she lay. He stood a moment as a man who is pierced in the midst of a cry by an arrow through the heart. A wave of nausea gripped his gut and clawed its sour way into his gullet. 'Éowyn!' He cried at last and fell to his knees beside her. 'What … _devilry_ … is this? How come you here?' 

The shieldmaiden swallowed, animated only from the lips and spoke as blood coated her teeth. 'For you, brother.' Pride lit her face and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, spilling more of her insufferable life. 

'No,' said the young king, fighting thought to save her. The gauntlets pulled taught over his vambraces closed around her stained hands, encompassing the halberd spitted through her breastplate. _I will kill her if I take it out. I have killed her already. She is dead._ 'Éowyn!' 

'Éothain is his father's son … not Gríma's.' Éowyn's jaded spirit fled the drowning house. In her eyes Éomer saw it wade through her tears. 'My sin is undone, at last. I am free.' Then she was still and did not speak again. 

The revelation must compete for the Rider's distress for Éomer was at once filled with a madness. He parenthesised Éowyn's face and slipped the helm from her matted hair, searching her eyes furiously. 'Éowyn? Éowyn!' So violently did he shake her in desperation that her head lolled to the side and thick globules of blood strung their way to the grass. 

About him his men watched anxiously. Their king was dead and the Lady Éowyn also. Now their lord was beside himself with grief. They should not survive the cruel dawn. 

'Death,' muttered Éomer in a fey mood as he released his sister and sat back, his knees sinking in the cold grey earth. 'Death take us all.' Then without taking counsel or waiting for the approach of the men of the City, he swung into the saddle and cried in a fell voice, 'Death! Ride, ride to ruin and the world's ending!' He raised his sword-arm for the charge, kindling the fury of the Rohirrim. And then out of the corner of his eye he saw Gríma. 

The Wormtongue was clad awkwardly in his battle garb, sundered from the host that yet remained. He had lost his mount. None heeded him as he stood blinking away tears at the sight of Éowyn's corpse. At Éomer's cry he raised his peculiar eyes and fear chased the heat of battle from his perspiring face. Deathly white did he become, for a laugh rose in Éomer's throat, deep and dark and unhinged, as he looked on the snivelling craven. 

'Your turn comes,' he yelled and turned the tip of the blade threateningly towards Gríma, but his words were lost to all except the wormtongue above the tumult. The Rohirrim sang no more. Roaring away southwards, loud and terrible, they went to avenge the fallen.   
  
  
  


TO BE CONTINUED 


	2. Chapter One: Seeds of Sorrow

**In Darkness Bind Them**   
  
  
  
Chapter One: Seeds of Shadow   
  
  
  
Disclaimer: JRR Tolkien and New Line Cinema own everything.   
  
  
  
3002 – Seventeen years before the Three Hunters come to Edoras with Gandalf 

A doll made of sack-cloth and stuffed with straw that bled from the slipped stitches in its sown side was clasped in Éomer's hands. The hair had once been of coarse horse's mane, but had fallen out long ago. It was Éowyn's plaything and he was returning it to her for perhaps it would be a comfort. 

Kneeled before the mound on the edge of the village, her fingers threaded among the stems of the _simbelmynë_. Their yellow eyes smiled from petal faces. _They grow where dead men rest and look how cheerful they are!_ Éowyn hated their impertinence. She tore at the grass, uprooting the flowers and crushed them in her clenched fists. Éomer watched her worriedly and stole a guarded glance at the awed children. They were the sons and daughters of Riders. Men who lived while his father died. Many of the lads had been Éomer's friends, but no more for in a child's cruel mind a boy with no father could never be a man. And now he must fend for his sister as well perhaps. 

'Here is your doll,' said the boy tersely and dropped it into her lap. 'Now come away. People will think you are mad.' Vexed because she cried not, but kept ceaseless vigil over her their father's fresh grave – her face as stern as stone – Éomer was also secretly jealous. A day and a night he had wept like a girl in the privacy of his bower. 

A thing new and mysterious to Éowyn, though the toy was long in her possession, she considered the dead thing. _Like Father._ 'I am not mad,' she spoke at last. 'Mother is mad.' Saucer eyes, blue only by the reflection of the sky bowled above Eastfold, looked to Éomer as he stood gangly behind her. 'Where did you get that?' A dagger hung at his side, tugging his belt low over his hips. 

'Lord Fréaláf gave it to me. It belonged to Father; it is mine now.' Pride filled his chest to bursting as he inhaled. 'Gúthwinë will be mine, too, when I am old enough.' 

Éowyn's palm closed around the blade. 'Can I see it?' 

'No, you have your doll! This is not a plaything, Éowyn.' Éomer stepped away from her carelessly, eager to defend his memories of happier times. The blade drew blood. 'Look what you've done!' Tears dammed behind the little girl's lids, milking her older brother's guilt. Using her mourning-scarf, he dressed the sliver, though she squirmed to reach his belt with her left hand. 'Hold still!' 

The blade bit into the sack-cloth, tasting straw and the bitter roots of winter grasses. Éomer stared at the doll, pinned to the earth with his dagger, and then at Éowyn. She pouted. Her brows burrowed furiously, seeking shelter from the storm that threatened to sweep across her face. Again she drove her brother's anlace through the doll's breast. And again. Until she lay sobbing amongst the Evermind, beating her wounded fist upon the torn toy, its entrails elevated by the North wind and clinging to her hair. 

'He left us! He left us, Éomer! Did he love hunting orcs more than he loved us?' Éowyn wailed. Maybe if she had learned to hunt orcs, too, he might have loved her enough to remain. At least this was the thought in her immature mind. 

The scene unfolded before the boy in much the same way that it did for the village children, but he did not point and whisper, nor run for an elder. He no longer cared what they thought. Pulling her into his lap, Éomer held her tightly, his fierce hug suffocating her fears. Yet he could not console her with an answer when it was no more clear to him. 

'Don't leave me,' Éowyn whimpered, clinging to her brother. Her tears were subsided except for violent sniffs that soiled his shirt. 'I will learn to ride and wield blade and – and –' Suddenly she became very still. 

The _simbelmynë_ moved. Not in the wind. The white flowers did not care for wind or weather. Peeking her red-rimmed eyes beneath Éomer's arm, Éowyn scrutinised the bright eyes. They were laughing, not smiling. Her heart sank as she willed herself to breathe. 'Mother is dead.' 

Frown as he might on morbid fantasy, Éomer suspected the flowers. His suspicions were confirmed by the appearance of Éowyn's nurse at the village gate a few minutes later, her skirts gathered above muddy boots. She blanched at the sight of the two small children, though she had often found them together when she called them to the board. _Yet her apron was never stained with blood,_ thought Éomer. _Mother's blood._ He bowed his head to Éowyn's tousled hair, but her anguish was spent and she did not cry again until they were much older and the misery of their parents began to afflict them in dangerous ways.   
  
  
  
TO BE CONTINUED   
  
  
  
A/N: Théodwyn "took sick and died". One might argue that this was a euphemism and that her "illness" was depression, and that she commit suicide. 


	3. Chapter Two: Sown In Sorrow

**In Darkness Bind Them**   
  
  
  
Chapter Two: Sown In Sorrow   
  
  
  
Disclaimer: JRR Tolkien and New Line Cinema own everything.   
  
  
  
A/N: I'm sticking to book canon with respect to character ages. Théodred was thirteen years older than Éomer, though he looked a lot younger than his cousin in the movie. 

_Westu hál_ translates to "be you whole" from Old English.   
  
  
  
3009 – Ten years before the Three Hunters come to Edoras with Gandalf 

Resplendent in burnished mail, Éomer sheathed Gúthwinë, and took the helm beneath his arm. Days-old stubble clung to his ruddy mug and sand-papered Éowyn's smooth, girlish palm. 'You look handsome. You will make a good Rider, Éomer.' 

_I will,_ agreed his pride. The young man's lips were more cautious, conceding nothing. Today he would ride as one of the _éored_ for the first time, to Eastfold with Théodred. Their cousin shirked favouritism and was a tough task-master. In the yard beyond Meduseld a cock crowed, seducing the sun to its rising. Sluggard night shadows picketed in the wolds of the green hills, jeering the coming light. 'We ride at dawn.' 

'Let me come with you.' Éowyn stirred a hornet's nest to waking fury and was not surprised when Éomer grew impatient, rolling his eyes and stomping his foot. 'I can ride and wield blade. And you said you would never leave me.' 

'I never said that. I thought you were happy for me!' 

'I am!' Éowyn protested enthusiastically. 'Only … I wish I was going with you.' 

_For glory? For death?_ Éomer bowed his head from her eyes lit with a maiden's giddy excitement. _A woman's strength is in the very display of her weakness. They weep or beg, and in one you love so utterly you believe her requite will shield you from spear and poisoned dart – for what does she have if not you? – and how can you protect her from armies if you cannot shield yourself from her? The Men of the Mark know this and they are able to turn defiantly from their wives and daughters and sisters when they ride._ I _know this. Éowyn knows it, too._

Sulking, the maiden shrugged beneath the warm pelts littered across her brother's bed. 'I wish I were a man, or at the very least that I had balls.' 

'Éowyn!' 

She ignored him. 'They seem to matter more than a man's head.' 

Laughing suddenly, Éomer pointed out that she would make an ugly man. 'Anyway,' he confessed, trying to coax even a smirk from her, 'I do not know what I should do without you.' Yet neither of them smiled. The notion was sobering. _I sound like Father,_ he thought, _to Mother. Each time he rode away._

Éowyn sneered at the affectionately-meant words. _Did he ever ask Mother what she would do without him?_

From the chest at the foot of the bed, Éomer took an item wrapped in dyed sack-cloth. It tweaked the maiden's interest and she came and sat on her knees beside him. 'I know this,' she exclaimed in awe, drawing the rag from the surprise. 

'Carefully,' he counselled and clasped her right hand, though his tone and touch were gentle. 

In his lap, laid to rest on the remains of Éowyn's doll, was the dagger he had worn so proudly as an orphaned boy. The silver and gold hilt had lost its lustre over long years of disuse, but the knife-edge grinned toothily in the candle-light. 'I shall not leave you, defenceless. Keep it with you, in your boot, and when that snake comes let him feel the bite of Éomund of Eastfold.' 

The cock crowed again even as Éowyn began, 'But Master Gríma –' Cracked lips stamped a parting kiss on her cheek and she was obliged to be silent. Her eyes stung. 'Westu hál, Éomer.' Her whisper chased too late from her mouth and beat its frustrated fists upon the door as it closed behind him. The moisture felt hot and uncomfortable on her cheeks. The stickiness plastered to her skin so that no matter how hard she rubbed, she thought she would never be free of her tears. For a moment she considered seeking Gríma out; he listened almost as much as his rattling tongue warbled on about heroic deeds out of Rohan's valiant past. Stories Éomer was living. _Éomer._ The maiden clutched the blade to her breast and it became her comfort when Éomer was not.   
  
  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	4. Chapter Three: Sun On The Simbelmynë

**In Darkness Bind Them**   
  
  
  
Chapter Three: Sun On The _Simbelmynë_   
  
  
  
Disclaimer: JRR Tolkien and New Line Cinema own everything.   
  
  
  
A/N: Before Saruman became desperate to obtain the One Ring he might have plotted a more subtle, ironic downfall of Rohan in which the House of Eorl succumbed to its own folly.   
  
  
  
3014 – Five years before the Three Hunters come to Edoras with Gandalf 

A man could hoard such a pretty thing all his life without once looking at it, or if he dared his soul to be re-enamoured of its beauty (and vice) he should not let crooked thought threaten to sell it for any price. Nor buy it – were it offered to him. Yet cunning spirit might twist the purpose of another, if its purpose was innocent to begin with. To corruption. The cracked, black coal that was the _palantir_ glowed and pulsed a smoky cloud across its sooty surface. Gríma swallowed. 'Lady Éowyn.' 

'You desire this woman?' The white wizard's baritone rumbled through the high-ceilinged chamber. 

'Well, no, my lord,' said Gríma, selective of the pieces upon the chessboard of this dangerous play, 'I do not _desire_ …' Éowyn's smile glittered, blooming into a grin, infectious with radiance. Plum-coloured lips strained to form their own beam; as a child mimicking a much-loved elder as tribute. _Do I not?_

Observing the wretched little man's tedious obsession was more an act of patience than fascination. Saruman greatly desired to pay this spy a dowry. Once broken, once sold. The _palantir_ revealed more of Éowyn's joy and Éomer stepped into the sphere. The king's nephew lifted his sister into his arms amid his delight. The paper-thin skin split, spilling blood over the curl of Gríma's lip. 'Do you not?' asked the wizard. 'You see things, Master Gríma.' 

'I do.' Then more fiercely, 'I do! That brigand, that _serpent_! He usurps her love and she is afraid of late. So afraid.' His face contorted in pain; he touched his translucent fingers to his lips. Gríma regarded the smudge of diluted red with a surprised frown and bit the wound. 'I would go to her, but he speaks ill of me. He _poisons_ her against me.' He lapsed into mumbled banter, punctuated briefly by fond recollections of a younger Éowyn. 'She would sit for hours in her uncle's knee as I told stories of old Éothéod and Scatha. She delighted in the most gruesome details even when Théoden did not. I would tell them to her afterwards at bedtime. Éomer, that little brat, was always jealous of her laughter. And so she must be always sad. Unless he should be her sun –' 

Saruman drew him back from gnawing, biting bitterness. In his manicured hand he held up a stem of Evermind. 'Many are the ill chances of this world, Master Gríma, or the next. For mortal men.' 

Stare as he might with peculiar interest at the unimaginative flower, Gríma did not understand. The wizard was disappointed. 'They sprout where dead men rest.' 

'And care not for rain.' 

Wry and twisted by the ironies of a life-age of the earth, it was not fair to call Saruman's smile a smile at all. 'Because it is a weed. When it grows on burial mounds men do not see it for a flower. Yet the bright eyes stretch away from the earth and seek reprieve in the sun.' 

Subtle as a snake were his words. Clever, too, and Gríma was afforded the understanding only because he had guessed near the mark when first he encountered Éowyn's sorrow. It was older than her and bound to her brother's war-mongering death-wish. A child could not impersonate such deeds of emotion unless they be of childish design, and they were not. 'What should I do?' 

'Let it live out its design and grow. You shall be her sun.' _So bright that maybe she will wither before her time._   
  
  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	5. Chapter Four Set To Wither

**In Darkness Bind Them**   
  
  
  
Chapter Four: Set To Wither   
  
  
  
Disclaimer: JRR Tolkien and New Line Cinema own everything.   
  
  
  
3017 – Two years before the Three Hunters come to Edoras with Gandalf 

Proud, with the horse-blood of his forebears Théoden denied the taming words of his counsellor's bridling advise and sought ever more to oppose Saruman with force. In Westfold he established the greater part of his Marshals and _éoherë_ under the command of his son. Éomer he sent to Eastfold, desiring peace in his house. Of late his nephew had become masterful, setting his will against Théodred in matters of politics and war, appropriating the king's favour so that Théoden might at last recognise only his adopted son. Neither was Éomer fond of Gríma. They argued loudly about close matters privy to Éowyn, who held out long against her uncle's concerned interrogation. 

'A sadness is on you, daughter, and you will not say what?' Gentle was Théoden's sunken face, carved by the cares of his office. 

The wintry smile succumbed to the flow of torrential tears and was swept ashore the king's consoling palm. Éowyn defended her tongue loyally and said nothing though her heart heaved itself into her throat, attempting to be free of its troubles. 

'Éomer, lord.' Gríma moved with grace in his sombre robes. Rohan was a funeral and he – the undertaker – groomed the House of Eorl for its committal. Honeyed words dripped sweetly on the ears of his audience. 

'Éomer?' asked Théoden. 

The cold steel of Éomund's blade fawned at Éowyn's ankle, imploring her to cruelty under the peculiar eyes of her brother's nemesis. Why these malicious thoughts, she did not know. Solidarity she expressed with Éomer against Gríma when her fear demanded it, yet the wizened figure of a man had always shown kindness in the face of her contempt. Even now he spoke her mind. 

'She grieves at his going, lord. Long has the Lady Éowyn been in his keeping and now that he is Third Marshal he must keep all of Eastfold,' he suggested. 'No doubt the succour of your hall is appreciated, but she is a free spirit and such formality is stifling.' A polite grimace tickled Gríma's rotting lips. 

Théoden snorted, unconvinced of his counsellor's explanation. Háma's eavesdropping served when Gríma defied and it did not take a simpleton to know that more often than not the arguments he shared with Éomer waxed from the affairs of state to Éowyn. 'Éowyn has a mind of her own and the freedom with which to speak it.' An encouraging hand closed around her arm. The muscles protective and riddled with guilt, for his sister-daughter had grown up in the shadow of war, motherless and schooled in the skill of the sword. _If only to fall upon it, as her mother did in her final despair._ It was his dread; his orders that Eastfold hold against Mordor's encroachment had bound Éomund to his fate. Did Théodwyn absolve him of blame? Would Éowyn? The failing king of a land falling under the White Hand and Shadow would surrender the keys to his keep if not to his children, who with their love renewed his resolve and strength. 

'It is true, my lord. I miss my brother,' Éowyn confessed. _A free spirit did he say? Free to weep and beg. Such noble conduct! And all about you the ones you love are cut down and you – caged – cannot go with them to their long home. Shall I always be left behind?_

'Do you not desire to look again on the place of your birth?' Gríma stirred the stew of his master's brewing, ruing the ingredients. 

'Aldburg! Nay, that is some leagues from here. I will not have her make the journey,' Théoden insisted, exercising the yoke of his solumphobia, 'unaccompanied by a member of my household. Whom I can trust.' Even if his counsellor's fall from favour was hard, he did not suspect an allegiance between Gríma and Saruman. He underestimated the boldness of Gálmód's son. 

Vaguely hurt by Théoden's scorn, Gríma need not pretend to wince in embarrassment. Marshalling his courtesy, he agreed, 'Assuredly not, lord. But do not deny your sister-daughter this grace. _Gamling_ is a trustworthy steward … though perhaps you could do with some company, my lady?' Let him appease first his king whose warrior motive concerned itself wholly with a military attack and lacked the subtlety to recognise an internal conflict – driving his kin to ruin. 

It began to rain on Éowyn's heart. The spit of unease was not recently fallen. She had felt the dank creep into her soul in the hour of her mother's death and it had since soaked her spirit to the marrow. Yet a smile alighted on her face at Gríma's offer of companionship. The sun was shining.   
  
  
  
TO BE CONTINUED   
  
  
  
A/N: I asked one of my friends why she thought Éowyn looked at Théoden as he ascended the steps to the Keep of the Hornburg the way she did (just after Gimli delivers the bad news). My interpretation was that she may have blamed her uncle's stubborn defence - in part - for Aragorn's death. But my friend suggested she was upset because "everyone she loves has died" and that Théoden alone of her family remained. At that stage she was unsure of her brother's fate. This was an interesting and different spin on Éowyn's desire to do battle, and I have modelled my characterisation of her based on this. Her death wish is out of fear of lonliness and losing the people she loves. I hope I haven't confused or bored anyone with character motivation :) 

_éoherë_ is the plural of _éored_


	6. Chapter Five: The Dead Do Burgeon

**In Darkness Bind Them**   
  
  
  
Chapter Five: The Dead Do Burgeon   
  
  
  
Disclaimer: JRR Tolkien and New Line Cinema own everything.   
  
  
  
Aldburg lay in the Folde – the King's Land at the foot of Irensaga, one of the cloud-swathed peaks of the White Mountains. Late February, and the melting snow belched forth perversions of spring from the frost-bitten ground. Hidden among the camouflage, the Evermind espied the company making their mounted way into the dale. At the head of the column rode Gamling and behind him came Éowyn and Gríma, and an escort of the king's household. A long horn-call rose in the valley, glanced on stones and was answered from below. Éomer's lieutenant was summoned to the gates. 

'What is it?' 

'Riders, Lord Elfhelm,' replied the scout breathlessly, 'from Edoras. The Lady Éowyn is come, with the Wormtongue.' 

Elfhelm grunted. _Wormtongue. Éomer will be ill-pleased, all the more for this surprise. When he returns from the hunt._ 'What need drives her hither?' The soldier could not say and the Eastfoldman was obliged to make his own inquiries, at the same time delivering the news that his captain pursued a thieving orc-band. 'They made off with a herd of horses, though how that Mordor lot means to drive the poor beasts across the Emyn Muil I do not know. Your brother set out at once, with ten men. That was at dawn, yesterday.' 

'Ten men,' Éowyn repeated miserably, weighing the odds against those that had been in her father's favour. 'Why so few?' 

'He was in haste and would not suffer a greater host to be mustered.' 

Gríma sniffed and was dealt a deathly stare by all except Éowyn who dismounted before the burg entrance. Said the knight, 'Éomer _will_ return.' 

Éowyn's attention turned to the graves. The knolls were more since last she had looked on them, and beyond their number a shadow moved on the plain running down from the distant Emyn Muil, jagged teeth on the edge of sight. 

'Speak of the devil,' Gríma muttered unwisely, drawing more unwelcome attention. He did not care. _This is but a means to an end. Soon my part will be over and she will be free of the bonds he has bound her with._ That _is all I desire._

'_That_ is all you will get.' 

Startled out of his hours-long reverie, the pallid counsellor found himself staring at the _simbelmynë_ adorning the tomb of Éomund and Théodwyn. A bracket had been driven into the ground beside him and the flames burned in the oily sheen of his stringy hair. The night tiptoed around the torchlight and taunted the sentries that stood watch at Aldburg's gates. 'Saruman.' 

'Worm,' said the wizard unkindly, shedding falsified respect for his agent. 'You have been here all day. To be called a worm is one thing, but a _witless_ worm? I must confess that I began to worry about you.' His slate moustaches flared into a grin. 

'This is wrong!' 

'Ah! I would not raise my voice if I were you. Those Horse-lordlings like you less than you could imagine. They have been wagering bets on how long their master's look would leave you petrified here. Éomer was not glad of your coming and it is a mercy you do not remember.' A low, rich laugh rustled through the grasses. 

Exhaling warmth into the chill night, Gríma glanced wearily over his hunched shoulders at the guards. The white wizard's cunning danced before their eyes and they were oblivious to it. Swallowing, he turned once again to his benefactor and whispered, 'There _must_ be some other way.' 

'What is the House of Eorl but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among their dogs?' Saruman hissed. 'Perhaps when next you think of your poor mother you will also think more kindly your Dunland blood. No, Wormtongue, there is no other way.' He twirled the neck of an Evermind blossom between his fingers and made to flick it at the wooden door of the crypt. 

'No!' Gríma's bony fingers curled like a spider around Saruman's wrist, desperate now. 'I will have Théoden on his knees, but I need more time.' 

_You have wasted mine long enough. The dead serve me better._ He wrested his ancient wrist politely from Gríma's clammy hand. 'The House of Eorl will fall. The spirits of its children are dead.' The flower dropped to the green-grey earth, its bright eye bowed in submission at Saruman's feet. 'Go inside, Worm. The hour is late.' 

Too late for Éomer. Too late for Gríma's half-imagined attempts at haggling a price less steep than the one the wizard had set on Éowyn. Stooping to the bushel of white florets, he raised the device of corruption and returned to Aldburg. 'To wither? I think not.' 

In the watch-tower above, one of the Rohirrim chuckled despite the gloomy dismissal of his fellows; a week's worth of wages was his.   
  
  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


End file.
